Disclosure: Some links on this page are monetized by the Skimlinks, Amazon, Rakuten Advertising, and eBay, affiliate programs. All prices are subject to change, and this article only reflects the prices available at time of publication.
The first tablet from OnePlus goes up for pre-order April 28th with prices starting at $479 for a OnePlus Pad with an 11.6 inch, 2800 x 2000 pixel, 144 Hz display, a MediaTek Dimensity 9000 processor, 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM, and 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage.
First announced in February, the tablet sort of went up for pre-pre-order earlier this month when OnePlus started letting customers put down a $99 deposit that would go toward the full purchase price… but at the time the company hadn’t revealed what that full price would be. Now we do.
While the $479 starting price puts this tablet squarely into premium territory by Android tablet standards, there are a few key features that help justify the price tag.
For example, the tablet has quad speakers, Dolby Atmos sound, an aluminum unibody design, and a 9,510 mAh battery with support for 67W fast charging.
But the stand-out feature sis probably the display. It packs 296 pixels per inch, supports a high refresh rate, and supports up to 500 nits brightness. It also has a 7:5 aspect ratio that OnePlus calls a “ReadFit” display.
Other features include a 13MP rear camera, 8MP front-facing camera, and support for optional accessories including a pressure-sensitive pen, a magnetic keyboard, and a folio case.
The tablet itself measures about 6.5mm (0.26 inches) thick and weighs 555 grams (1.22 pounds).
When OnePlus first announced the OnePlus Pad, the company also said it would support up to 12GB of RAM, but so far the only model available for pre-order in the US is an 8GB/128GB version.
OnePlus says the tablet should begin shipping to customers on May 8, 2023.
The specs look good yet I’m bored. A solid tablet in the low price range is exciting. A more expensive tablet needs to do a little more than bump up the specs. Low-end tablets could do 90% of what high-end tablets do.
I’m still waiting for a low-end, lightweight, 15″ tablet to read my comics. It doesn’t need to do much beyond that. How about a tablet with a built-in digital tv tuner? Really… what’s taking so long to do this?
A $500 tablet that doesn’t even give me the option to remove the battery… but promises me a hundred billion pixels because… why not. Boring.
What you should be paying attention to, spec-wise, is the 144Hz display. Anything smoother than 60Hz can make or break any Android experience, especially when the screen it’s on is huge.
Whether that’s worth $400 is still subjective, but something to think about.
For $479, maybe OnePlus managed to get the correct battery level to show in this tablet’s status bar — not on my OnePlus Nord N200 5G phone however. Nine months and many software updates after purchase and OnePlus has never fixed this problem; when I go to Settings and select Battery, it shows as 91% full, but the status bar says it’s at 0%. I’ll buy another OnePlus product some time after Hell freezes over.